


Stolen Dreams

by Vera (Vera_DragonMuse)



Category: Hercules: The Legendary Journeys
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-03-20
Updated: 2005-03-20
Packaged: 2017-10-07 02:19:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vera_DragonMuse/pseuds/Vera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When mischief lays down with thievery, who can tell what dreams may come?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stolen Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Challenge 41: Autolycus steals Strife's soul from the Underworld.](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Challenge+41%3A+Autolycus+steals+Strife%27s+soul+from+the+Underworld.).



The problem with being dead, Strife decided, had nothing to do with the missing people or things and had everything to do with being:

"BORED!"

The scream reverberated through one of the vast empty spaces of the Underworld. They were many and various throughout, gray formless areas that left a sandy taste in the mouth and heavy feeling on the eyelids.

Many mortal souls eventually faded away under the filtered light, ebbing into nothingness.

In the first year, Strife had thought those broken specters the weakest scum, the second year he had started to understand their perspective. Now, in the third year, he was getting ready to join them. Aside from a few choice dinner parties with Hades when Persephone was topside and catching up with some of his old buddies in Tartarus, there was nothing, nothing to do. Oh, sure, he could try and stir up trouble, turn up the proverbial heat on a few already boiling pots, but....

Nothing felt the same. It was all dulled and muffled. Like...well. Yelling into a void.

"Yah ever heard of irony?" He inquired roughly of a flitting shade. It blinked slowly at him before departing. "Figures."

With a sigh, he rearranged some matter and sat. Maybe he should take a nap for a few years. Take the edge off. Not like he had anything else to do. With growing interest, he took hold of more gray and stretched it into a smooth light blanket, extended at softened his perch and fluffed up a pillow. Little more then a dark stripe of gray himself curled in his creation, the God of Mischief yawned and settled down for a long rest.

)*(

It was not an easy task to fake boredom while being stared down by a god. It was down right difficult to fake boredom while being stared down by an angry, armed god. But nevertheless Autolycus was managing. He figured he had at least three or four more minutes before the blond bombshell exploded into fists, feathers and sparkles. Casually, he picked at his nails with a dagger, watching the pacing out of the corner of his eye.

"...and then to do this under my own nose. Just because I'm the God of Love, doesn't mean I'm vapid, you know. Sneak thief is what you are..."

The ranting had gone on for about a half hour already. Autolycus was quite impressed with the lecturing stamina, having met its match in few others. Hercules was good for a two or three hour span, of course. He wouldn't have expected Aphrodite's kid to have this kind of attention span. Then again, he was Ares' son as well. Not that Ares had a long attention span. He just talked a lot before he beat the tar out of you and left you for dead. And considering that Cupid was definitely taking on some of his father's qualities at the moment, Autolycus was rapidly planning a getaway.

"..and then staying around to pry out the gold inlay. Strung up by your own jealousy! Does no one respect love anymore..."

The golden veined marble pillar he was currently leaning on seemed to be the only decoration in the vacant temple Cupid had taken him to in his fury. It was something like a god's idea of a holding cell. Posh, but impenetrable. He flicked a particularly stubborn piece of dirt from out from under a finely manicured nail. Mangled nails might mean the difference between falling to one's death or catching onto a ledge.

" I mean honestly, did you think I laid that diamond out there without thinking about who would come for it? I had this planned from the beginning and now here you are, right where I wanted you all along."

Maybe he should just-hang on a moment. Autolycus looked up to find Cupid laughing at him.

"Oh man, the expression on your face!'

"You mean you put the diamond on display to trap me?"

"Got it in one. Maybe you aren't as stupid as I thought you were." The pretty, vacant-looking head cocked to one side. "Which is good."

"Why not just whisk me away in the night or something?"

"Because I need everyone else to think that I took you to punish you."

"You didn't?"

"I guess that depends on your definition of punishment. Anyway, I had to wait for all the spies to leave. People are remarkably paranoid on Olympus."

Sheathing his dagger seamlessly into his boot, Autolycus was rapidly reviewing every possible scenario about why Cupid would want him. Considerable ego aside, Autolycus knew his skills as a lover, which were not paltry by any mines, would still do little to entice the God of Love to steal him away for a tumble in the sack.

"They're gone now. And I think you do owe me something for trying to steal my diamond." The glittering stone reappeared in Cupid's hands, the tiny flame still flickering within it. He tossed it casually from hand-to-hand, obviously aware that it was having a hypnotic effect on Autolycus. "A quest will do nicely."

"But you set me up!" He protested, still watching the movement of the gem. Left, right, left, right. It arched triumphantly, the flame within stretching and growing.

"Yes, I did." The god practically preened. "I had to get you where I wanted you. Now, unless you want me to turn you over to my father for some real punishment..."

"No, no. Whatever you come up with will be fine. No need to tell Ares of it all, really."

"That's what I thought." The diamond rose into the air and stuck there, rotating slowly. "Do you know what it is, the diamond?"

"It's a firestone. They're said to possess strange powers, but no one has seen one in years."

"Mmm. This one acts as...well...let's say it's sort of like a mirror." Full pink lips pursed discontentedly. "No, not a mirror...It allows you to see things that you wouldn't ordinarily find. Lost things. Like all the firestones, its powers are inconsistent and unpredictable. Sometimes it will reveal lost things or people, other times it will show you parts of yourself that you have misplaced or stray thoughts and dreams. On occasion, it reveals nothing at all."

"What does this have to do with the quest?"

"Patience, my dear thief, you have learned that lesson well, use it now." The firestone began to rotate gently in the air. "When I found this bauble, it lay quiet for some days. It was only when I found myself bored and reached to examine it that it flared to life. The picture it showed me was... I will come to that in a moment."

A tight sigh of annoyance from Autolycus earned only a tight glare before Cupid plunged onwards.

"You know of Strife?"

"Medium height, black hair, killed by Callisto? Sure. I've seen him. Heard of him more, the way Xena and Gabrielle talk about Ares, his sidekicks were bound to come up. Hercules wasn't too fond of him either."

"It wasn't in his makeup to be liked. Mischief is what everyone enjoys doing and hates having done to them. That's why everyone else seems content to leave him dead."

"You aren't?" Autolycus was somewhat taken aback by the bitterness in the god's tone.

"Look, Strife and I weren't like best buds or anything, but he did his job and lived the way his nature dictated. That's all any of us can do. Somewhere along the line, the older gods are beginning to forget that. Ares is the only one that's made even vague gestures get Strife back, but between the rift of Zeus and Hades, the whole evil god scare and the general attention span of any given god it has amounted to a whole lot of nothing."

"So this has to do with the firestone because..."

"Don't rush me, I've got a good narrative flow going."

"Sorry."

"As I was saying, so Ares negotiations got no where and then he forgot. And everyone eventually forgot and it was all going along as usual until about three weeks ago. Despite Strife's death, the general level of mischief and mayhem was pretty stable. I thought it was because there are so many gods who cause those things that maybe Strife's job had been redundant. Then abruptly, the levels of general havoc dropped."

"That...actually explains a lot." He recalled the general sense of quiet lately. Children staring out from the windows or playing quiet games in the streets. Wives tongues hadn't been wagging quite as much when he'd attempted to solicit information from them. Not to mention that he was one of only three thieves who'd made an attempt at the firestone. Only a month ago, he'd known of no less then thirty who were at least seriously considering going after it.

"When I picked up the firestone that day, I was already concerned. No one else was concerned that it was a problem and it won't be for another few months. Eventually though, the balance is going to go to pieces and the whole world is going to swing out of...you get the idea. The firestone must have picked up on my thoughts because is showed me what the world had lost."

"Strife?"

"Excellent." Cupid nodded. "You do have a brain under that mop of hair. He is slipping away."

"He's dead."

"Dead is not gone as well you know. Iolaus has walked into death and come out again many times."

"Yes, but..."

"Dead is not gone. Strife was dead, but very much around. There is an opportunity for the dead to waste away. To fade to nothing if they so desire. You'd be surprised how many of them choose to live eternities of torture rather then to become nothing. It seems that Strife has chosen to leave existence. I can't say I blame him."

"But you need him?"

"Just so."

"You saw Strife in the firestone, sleeping in the underworld." Cupid nodded. "And then you set up an elaborate ruse with said firestone to get me where none of the gods would bother you." Nod. " So my quest has to do with Strife." Nod. "You want Strife back." Nod. "You want me to get Strife back."

"We have a winner."

The God of Love should not be allowed to be that deadpan.

"I'm just a mortal guy, I really don't see how I could..."

"Steal. You are the king of thieves, are you not? I want you to steal Strife's soul from the underworld. And quickly."

"I don't usually work commission jobs."

"I could talk to my Father..."

"In this case, I can make an exception."

"Think of it as your masterwork. No one has stolen a soul from Hades before."

Somehow, Autolycus doubted that he would ever get a chance to brag.

)*(

"Now are you sure you understand how this works?"

"I take the necklace and its amulet will guide me to Strife. When I find him, I carry him back here."

"He'll be light. Souls are."

"When I get back here, I leave Strife and run for everything I'm worth, so all of Olympus doesn't come down on me like a ton of bricks." Autolycus sighed, tucking the gaudy necklace under his shirt and trying not to think about being tortured by half the Pantheon.

"Now things might get a bit murky and strange. Time passes differently, so don't worry about rushing. Go now, thief. Do not fail me."

The entrance to the underworld was fairly underwhelming. It was of course, a back entrance. Cupid had solicited its whereabouts from Hermes, who walked among the dead on occasion. The other god had been well into his cups and was already lusting after one of Cupid's priestesses. The doorway was secret, tucked in thick woods. It was only a rough-hewn cave that opened grudgingly at Cupid's touch.

Autolycus looked out at the sun one last time, squinting a bit at the brightness, before venturing into the misty depths of the cave.

The first thing he noticed was the lack of sound. His feet made no noise as they padded across the ground, if ground was truly beneath his feet. Though the cave opened and grew lighter, nothing became visible. A thick murky fog rolled over this plane leaving him a little drowsy and disoriented. Minutes passed by as he stood, trying to get his bearings. After a while, he gave it up for a lost cause and began to follow the warm tug of theamulet against his chest. He could see no path to follow, heard no one pass by. His own whistle became lost only a few inches from his face, muffled and tired sounding to his ears.

Occasionally, something would manifest in the mist, only to dwindle away again. Some were human shaped, others only more cohesive bits of cloud. Farther on, the fog roiled and rose. Every so often, it would clear entirely to reveal a shelter or a group of rocks. No consistent landscape ever appeared. He walked for what seemed like hours, tense and ready to be attacked. The shades seem uninterested in his passing, too preoccupied with whatever business they were attending. The dwellers of the shelters would peek out at him, but soon retreated, forgetting they had ever glanced him.

At last, the amulet gave a vicious pull to the left and Autolycus nearly fell over a huge bed rising from the fog. It was colorless like most of the underworld, but it's occupant retained his basic shape and faint color. If Autolycus remembered correctly, Strife had never been big with the color anyway. A work purely in black in white with a touch of silver. The silver was gone, the white dirtied to gray and the black fading to match.

Unsure of how to proceed, more than a little confused thanks to the slow workings of the plane, Autolycus leaned forward and gently touched the slumbering god's brow. It felt cool and a little clammy. Pale lips parted in a soft sigh. Feeling braver, Autolycus smoothed a lock of matted hair off the fair forehead, rested the palm of his hand on one sharp cheekbone. No visible reaction prompted him to slide the same hand under his neck.

The next step was meant to be to slide his other hand under the waist and hoist the thin body from under the makeshift blankets. That was what was meant to happen.

Hades was a strange and shifting god. His realm followed suit, resembling more his son Morpheus' shifting landscape then the solid pillars of Olympus. A roll of muffled thunder took Autolycus by surprise and canted him forward onto the soft bed. Strife rose out of deep sleep into dreaming. He flailed, grabbing instinctually at the warm body above him, drawing in closer. Autolycus, already startled by the thunder met this grasp with a roll until Strife was settled comfortably on top of the thief. They lay like that for a long time, Autolycus watching the fog, losing his sense of self, of life...

And he fell into his sleep like a fall to death. But the living cannot dream in the land of the dead, so instead his sleeping mind fell to roving, settling in the next available dreamscape.

)*(

The dungeon was a welcome shift from the gloom of Tartarus, Autolycus thought fuzzily. He was sitting in the bottom of a stone tower, chains hanging from the walls. The ceiling was open; he could stare up at the stars. Next to him, a nearly naked teenager was lying on his back, also watching the stars.

"I suppose you've come to take me back." The youth stretched, arching his hips up and throwing his ribs into sharp relief under paper-thin skin.

"I think I have."

"I should want to go. But I like it here."

"Really? Seems kind of...quiet. For a mischief god."

"My mind used to be noisy." The teenager sighed softly. "Lots of things, ideas, ricocheting around. I wasn't quite in sync with the timeline, actually. I see that now. Got future things all mucked up in my head. The other gods, they know how to separate it out, but they forgot to teach me."

"You seem all right now."

"Yeah." They stared at the stars together until the tower gave way to a battlefield. The teenager jumped up and ran, shrinking as he went until he was a small child, wearing only a diaper and swinging a toy sword.

"'ncle Awes! I wanna play..."

Ares appeared among the many soldiers, hoisting the infant up.

"What are you doing here?"

"Mommy told me to go out and play." The tyke said solemnly, sucking on one finger.

"Of course she did. And who's your friend?"

"Dunno."

Ares glanced at the child and then over at Autolycus.

"Can he stay?"

"You'd both better go. I don't have time to baby-sit."

He set down the boy and walked back into the fray. The child pouted for a long moment, obviously debating whether or not tears would be of help in the situation. Instead, he got up and ran into the fray. Autolycus leapt in after him, fear lumping in his stomach. The child wound further and further into danger. As far as the eye could see, blood spilled, but no one noticed him or the bolting infant.

The red of the blood was just a sunset painted on a hillside outside of Corinth. The child was a man, wrapped tightly in a brown cloak. Unruly black hair curled down to the man's waist, a second cloak that caught the light of the sun and swallowed it.

"There were dark days. A plague."

"I heard tales of that from my grandparents."

"My followers, children. They died like flies and I grew weak."

A funeral procession threaded through the hills at their feet.

"But you got better..."

"With no help from anyone. I need no one's help. I didn't need it then, I don't need it now."

"I wasn't trying to help..."

"Then get out of my dreams."

"I don't even know how I got in!"

But it was too late, the hills were gone and the man was a teenager again. He lay in bed, fevered with passion, twisting the sheets under his fist as gorgeous young woman rides him. Autolycus crept out through a black door. The other room was the same scene, only sometime later. The woman ran out the door and the teenager followed her with cooling eyes.

"Gods shouldn't sleep with mortals." The teenager advised, giving another cat-like stretch.

"I just need you to come back with me..."

"It's just common sense. But I've never been accused of having much of that."

"It'd really only take a minute..."

"Even gods fear death, you know. I was so afraid of it, but there's nothing to fear. Only boredom and the temptation of oblivion."

"But if you go, then we all go."

"As I go, so goes the world. Find me a better reason, I don't care for the world at all."

The bedroom was rapidly replaced with a strange wood. The trees were painted thousands of colors and the sky looked runny and unfinished.

Adult again, finally dressed as he was remembered, hair left short. The black leather and silver rings should have looked ridiculous covered in splatters of paint, but it was oddly fitting.

"What do you want?" Autolycus asked. "More then you want oblivion."

"What does anyone want?"

"Money, family, love...I don't know. Lots of things."

"What do you want?"

Autolycus thought for a long moment, ignoring the slow bleeding away of paint that left the landscape a mere charchoal sketch of a forest.

"To live life until it is utterly wrung of meaning and experience. Then die swiftly."

"So you see my problem?"

"Do I?"

"I have been granted death, final death after living for far too long."

"But there are so many things..."

"I can't live the way I want to. My mind is too...messy. Ares rules me utterly since anything I think for myself ends in disaster. My life is one of servitude, a slave to my own tangled thinking."

"You seem better now."

"Only in sleep."

White now, a new sketch slowly rising out.

"Your return is not expected. You could go wherever you wish. Start anew."

"Why? With what?"

"With me."

A bedroom colors in. Autolycus recognized it as his own from years back. Before he was a thief at all. The last place he had called home.

"You don't know me. Don't know what it's like. How could you start a whole new place with me?"

"Why not? Think of it. I would have already stolen a soul from under Hades' very nose. That will be the greatest thievery in the history of Greece. I want to go out on my peak."

"You're a mortal. You'd only leave me."

The woman appeared briefly, at the door. Autolycus quickly shoved her from the room. The door resounded satisfactorily behind her.

"So make me immortal and eternally young. Ask Zeus for a boon or maybe we can steal it."

"We'll get on each others' nerves." Strife sat down hard on the bed. "Two does not a party make..."

"Others will find us. There are other mischief gods who will be set aside."

Pale blue under white flickered.

"Loki might come, Spider and Monkey. In time there will be Puck..."

"A whole realm of mischief-makers."

"And thieves."

Autolycus moved to the bed.

"By the score."

They kissed, but in dreaming, where touch was lacking. Frustrated Autolycus pushed harder and forced himself to wake.

)*(

Waking, the shade and the man entered each other, bodily and spiritually. Strife's form shifted, accommodating them both until it was difficult to tell where one began and the other ended. Their goal was not pleasure, but union. Buried in each other, they learned everything beyond the physical. Scent, touch, shape were all later considerations when tangibility wasn't as optional.

Under the rolling fog, Autolycus and Strife came to an agreement.

)*(

Cupid would be waiting at the secret exit, so they went out through the front door. Hades watched them go, eyes as dark as Autolycus would have expected, but almost painfully young-looking. They said not a word as the passed by and the brother of Zeus, arguably the second most powerful God in all of existence, let them by without so much as a raised hand in halting.

"He approves." Autolycus noted, his surprise evident.

"Cause he's been tryin' ta spring me since I got here." Strife waved at the retreating dark figure. "It made him mad as a wet cat when Unc stopped comin' down to negotiate and he kept apolgizin' for not given me up sooner."

"He thought you were going to destroy the place, didn't he?"

"Nah. I thought so to, but he's just...he knew I wasn't gonna make it much longer." Black locks shook themselves into a crazed halo. "Don't know what I was thinkin'."

Cerberus licked Strife's face and nudged at Autolycus' hand, whining as they left him at the gate. It took all of the thief's well-practiced cool to keep from pissing himself when the giant dog barked sadly at their exit.

"That was mildly disturbing." He managed to comment when they had passed.

"Aw, he's just a big ol' softie."

It was then that it finally sank in to Autolycus' overworked brain that he had set out with the God of Mischief on a mission that would lead him far from everything he had ever known and quite possibly kill him before he got two steps out of Greece. A thrill of adrenaline pulsed threw him and he was suddenly very aware of himself. The cords of his muscles, the bounce in his step. He was still in the prime of his life, doing a job he loved better then anyone else who claimed the title of thief.

As the underworld let go it's last grips on his mind, he felt renewed, vigorous. He thought briefly of Hercules, Lena, Gabby and Iolaus. Even thought of his ex-wife with grim affection. A handful of thieves that actually took him as King, those barkeeps who knew his face and his business. All the comforts of the wandering man, whose roots spread across a country.

Fuck 'em.

"Look at that!" Strife was running and laughing like a small child. The murkiness sapped from his frame, he was shaking off the black leathers that he wore previous to his death.

The dropping lengths turned to serpents as they fell, crawling off in all directions. Their master was clothed again before the sun kissed his skin, now in a tight black pants and a billowing black shirt cut open to his abdomen, a white shirt frothed out from underneath. The black nimbus of curls were caught in a passing breeze.

The godling was being reborn and gesticulating wildly at the shore they had emerged on. A boat was already waiting, a black beauty with her sails voluminous and quivering with potential. The water churned underneath, a white froth of promise.

"Did you conjure that?" He asked as Strife bounded back over to him, grasping up one hand and tugging him forward.

"Dunno! My power was all stuffed up, yah know? Could be bustin' out all ovah without my say so."

The godling seemed entirely unconcerned by this, swinging up on the rigging and pulling Autolycus with him.

"It occurs to me that we might still be sleeping." He commented as the shore receded rapidly from them. "I mean, this is all a little fast."

"Does it matter?"

The ocean water splashed up, scenting the air with salt and promise. The boat steered itself towards a gloriously painted horizon.

"Where are we going?"

"The land of mischief gods, like you said."

"Which is where exactly?"

"See there's this huge piece of land, no one's been there yet from this part of the world. Got nomadic tribes and plenty of open space, but it's got potential. We get their first, start attracting the others...who knows what we could do."

They were still in Hades' dark realm, Autolycus was now sure. They were sleeping there for eternity caught in a mad dream together and he wasn't at all sure that he could think of a better fate.

)Just Under Three Millennium Later (

Two figures peeled out of the sky scraper just as an angry mob started to hurl things at them and shout very un-zen-like obscenities. They were laughing so hard they could barely run, jostling into each other and holding on to their precious loot.

The bags contained every pair of shoes in three different yoga classes. They ditched them in an alley several blocks down, before careening off toward home. The apartment existed only for those with the eyes to see it which in a big city were sometimes the oddest people. Built into the side of a famous building like a giant bird nest with the walls were done entirely in stain glass and duct tape.

Their bed was a monstrosity of pillows, blankets and one huge down mattress that they collapsed onto gratefully. Like any aging couple, they had come to look more alike. Hairstyles had come and gone. They both wore their wild manes cropped close to their heads now, sleek with a hint of curl. They both wore jeans, black forever for Strife and a dark blue for Auto. In their jackdaw home, they kept all the fragments of their long life together.

In the subsided giggles, Strife dropped, "I saw Ares today."

"You what?" The thief turned languidly on the bed, change raining out of his pockets with few watches and a sucking candy put back in its wrapper.

"I looked up and he was just....there. Was stalking Herc and muttering to himself."

"Wow, he's still kicking and obsessive. That's...kinda pathetic."

"I want to talk to him."

"You sure?"

A hard hand on his shoulder sent him rolling and he easily pulls the other man with him. Strife leaned possessively over the prone thief.

"You still goin' with that stupid dream theory?" Thumbs stroked his collarbone. They'd talked this over so many times, the conversation was a limp rag. Auto shouldn't still be alive, this whole America thing was too crazy for words and why was Strife so powerful if no here even knew he existed, let along prayed to him? The only answer is that they are still in an unwaking dream.

"I don't know." He answers, tired and truthful. "But if it is, I don't want to wake up."

"And you think Unc' might do that?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know much today, sugah. You sure your feelin' all right?"

Auto rolled them until it was Strife pinned beneath him and growled. The lopsided grin hadn't changed and it still tasted of something stolen and forbidden.

When the moon had risen, shattering light patterns over their naked pale skin where they had finally come to a rest, Strife muttered into his arm,

"He came for me. After all this time..."

"You said yourself he was looking for Hercules."

" I know, but..."

But.

To be wanted, to be remembered that was all that Autolycus could not steal for him. All that he could not recreate in their fresh bright country with it's plastics and hard-rocking music.

"You should talk to him."

"Even if it means..."

"Even." He kissed fingertips that sported chipping black polish.

"Why the change of mind?"

"Cause I finally realized something. If this isn't a dream, then nothing Ares does can touch us. You've got to be far more powerful then he is. And if it is...that means we're only just beginning."

"Trippy."

A tremendous satiny comforter settled around them as Strife hummed something under his breath. Auto never bothered trying to decipher the song anymore, letting the dull vibrations against his cheek lull him to sleep. For the first time, he felt no fear of waking here or in the dullness of Tartarus. Amazing what a slight change of perspective would do.

As soon as the mortal was truly asleep, Strife completed his song. He had sung it every night since they climbed on to their boat, a shard of which was hidden in one pile or another. A dream from which they would never wake, a reality they embraced with each dawn.


End file.
